Creo God Simulator - A Growing Game
Hello there everyone! Here we have another extremely-overdue Creo God Simulator progress update! In this progress update, we will be discussing gameplay feature additions, UI changes, and a large rebranding.
To begin, I'll admit that the current pandemic situation really did a number on my ability to get work done. Here at Homebase, I was surprised by how difficult it was to balance my fulltime job, attend to my family, and work on Creo in the little free time I had. Over the last few months, my frustration with how slowly Creo was progressing was getting to me, and though I was making progress on new game systems and UI, I really let my communication with Creo's community slip.
However, in recent weeks, I've found significantly more time to work on Creo, and a good friend of mine has agreed to hop on the Creo team as a community/growth development manager (more on that in coming updates). With my additional time and my friend's help, I'm excited to say that Creo is entering a much more efficient period for its development and growth. So without further adieu, let's get to what I've been up to.
New and Improved Gameplay Features
So over the course of the last few months, I've made numerous improvements to various gameplay systems in Creo. Villager birth rates, for one, have gotten a major overhaul, and now scale based on how large your town is becoming. I've also been gradually balancing the gameplay out resource-wise: making sure wood gathering and food production rates are fair yet challenging.
Oh yeah, I also added a point-click road laying system.
Yes, you heard that right. For all you old-school Creo fans who remember the admittedly awful road laying system of yonder, you'll be pleasantly surprised with the intuitiveness of simply clicking where you want your road point to be, and a road magically connecting your points! (This system took weeks...)
Updated God Powers
In addition to updating lots of the current gameplay mechanics, I've also updated the god powers to work with the new map, and also made them look at a bit nicer, as is evidenced below:
With the changes to the game engine completed, I overhauled the god power system, which should make it much easier to add new god powers in the future. As it currently stands, we have the Meteor, Rain, and Lightning god powers.
Rebranding and UI Updated
And last but certainly not least, is our large UI/Rebranding project. This was the thing that actually took up most of my time over the last few months. I've been taking some time to learn a thing or two about better UI/UX design, so this lead to me remaking ALL of the UI in Creo. Here's an image of the main game screen with its new UI layout:
I wanted to go for a little bit more polished/modern look to Creo. In addition, I also added a new notifications/events textbox in the top left of the screen. This scrollable and expandable box will hold a log of all the important notifications that occur in your town and Creo at large.
I believe that these UI changes, though small, will add up to make a much more enjoyable gaming experience. In addition to these UI changes, I also had the game logo redone for something more minimal which really caught my eye.
In Conclusion
Yes, I know this progress update had a lot to process - holy gifs am I right? - but I found it necessary to catch you up to where Creo currently sits. Right now, I am balancing the resources management side of the game, but am getting VERY close to having a playable update ready for all of you. The next few weeks will see more regular posting and progress. I'm excited to share with you all the new features I'll be adding to the game in the coming months.
Thank you Creostriders!
- Esteban (Guy who made Creo)